We all watch the news with horror when we hear about a homicide that happens not that far away from us. While a murder just blocks or even a couple of towns away from your house would make anyone uneasy, in the long run, most likely, where you live is relatively safe.

So we wanted to get the facts straight and dug into the FBI crime data in order to identify the places with the most murders and the highest murder rates per capita in Tennessee.

How we calculated the murder capitals of Tennessee

While there are surveys and public polls on what cities in a state are the most dangerous, we didn’t want to rely on speculation and opinion. Instead, we looked at the hard numbers from the FBI’s last year of reporting. Specifically, we analyzed the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report which summarizes the number of murders that may happen in each city per year.

We only looked every single city in Tennessee for which FBI data was available for the most recent FBI Crime In The United States. That left us with 42 cities to rank.

We felt as if a small place with 2,500 people and two murders makes it a lot more dangerous than a city of 25,000 people with one murder.We must note that this report is not an analysis of the effectiveness of local police departments. It simply states where murders occurred most frequently.

Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the fourth Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers.

Knoxville is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Knox County. The city had an estimated population of 186,239 in 2016 and a population of 178,874 as of the 2010 census, making it the state’s third largest city after Nashville and Memphis. Knoxville is the principal city of the Knoxville Metropolitan Statistical Area, which, in 2016, was 868,546, up 0.9 percent, or 7,377 people, from to 2015. The KMSA is, in turn, the central component of the Knoxville-Sevierville-La Follette Combined Statistical Area, which, in 2013, had a population of 1,096,961.

Chattanooga is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, with a population of 176,588 in 2015. The fourth-largest Tennessee city, it is the seat of Hamilton County. Located in southeastern Tennessee in East Tennessee, on the Tennessee River, served by multiple railroads and Interstate highways, Chattanooga is a transit hub. Chattanooga lies 120 miles northwest of Atlanta, Georgia, 120 miles southwest of Knoxville, Tennessee, 135 miles southeast of Nashville, Tennessee, 120 miles northeast of Huntsville, Alabama, and 148 miles northeast of Birmingham, Alabama.

Milan is the second largest city after Humboldt in Gibson County, Tennessee, and the largest entirely within the county. It is home to the Milan Army Ammunition Plant, the West Tennessee Agricultural Museum and several historical sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The city was the first in Tennessee to begin no-till farming and to flouridate its drinking water. The Milan Endowment for Growth in Academics was the first private community financial endowment for public schools in Tennessee.

Brownsville is a city in Haywood County, Tennessee. It is the county seat of Haywood County, which is in the broad delta floodplain near the Mississippi River. Its population as of the 2010 census is 10,292.

Paris is a city in Henry County, Tennessee, 86 miles northwest of Nashville, on a fork of the West Sandy River and the Tennessee River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 10,156. It is the county seat of Henry County.

There You Have It – The Places With The Most Murders In Tennessee For 2019

If you’re looking at the places in Tennessee with the most murders, and where residents have the highest chances of being killed themselves, this is an accurate list. Again, these statistics are an indication of where crimes occur, not a statement about the effectiveness of the law enforcement in the areas they serve.